Sunday night about half past five gunfire, a recently too familiar sound, erupted over Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. This time however it indicated renewal, as 18 months of political stalemate that culminated in the violent clashes of the last weeks, came to an end with the election of president Michel Suleyman. The clashes were the worst outbreak of violence since the countries bloody civil war. The last three weeks have presented the Lebanese people with an exceptional roller-coaster ride that lead the country from political deadlock, to war and finally to the election of a consensus president, whose position has been vacant since last November. Lebanese politicians have called the elections ‘ the turning of a page and beginning of a new chapter’. Yet if this chapter marks true diversion from the countries violent history has to be seen.
The 7th of May, also the 60th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel marked the beginning of the violent clashes. The day was originally marked out for major labor strikes, protesting the recent rise in food and gasoline prices. Fighting was sparked by a governmental call to dispose Hezbollah (the Party of God) of its internal communication system and lead an inquiry into Beirut Airport’s head of security, who has been perceived to be to close to the party. Hezbollah, an armed, Shia social movement aligned to Syrian and Iran had in 2006 emerged triumphant from its war with Israel. Since Hezbollah, in coalition with other Shia and Christian parties, has presented the opposition to the March 14 governmental coalition that is backed by the West.
Within hours Hezbollah responded to the governments challenge witch force, blocking both access to the port and closing the road to the countries only international airport. In response the army sealed the border with Syria, effectively locking Lebanon inn. RPG fire and violent clashes were reported from Beirut’s Western districts, home to many government officials. Hezbollah secured the, historically resonant Hamra district, a mixed neighborhood of Sunni, Shia Druze and Christians that is also home to many foreign journalists. Both Israelis and Americans had formerly invaded Hamra, a PLO stronghold during the Lebanese Civil War. By taking Hamra, Hezbollah had effectively put Saad Hariri, leader of the March 14, Al Mustaqbal Movement and Walid Jumblat, the Druze leader of the Progessive Socialist Party under house arrest. Armed militias took over the Al-Mustaqbal television station, a voice of the governmental coalition, and burned it to the ground.
When the next day broke, fighting had spread like oil slick all over the country. Violent clashes were being reported from the north, where Sunni fighters confronted Hezbollah, the southern region around Tyre and the mountainous Aley and Shouf areas. Aley, a most strategic position overlooking Beirut and connecting Hezbollah strongholds in the capital with its hinterland bastion of the Beqaa valley saw heavy fighting with Druze gunmen defending their villages. Although Hezbollah did not concentrate its full force on the area, the collective of Druze villages put up a fierce battle and despite calls of their leader Walid Jumblat to keep calm, eventually drove Hezbollah out.
Since the fighting began a pattern had developed under which, Hezbollah would take an area by force and then hand it over to the military. Until the last day of clashes, the military was bound by orders not to engage into direct combat, which would have pushed the clashes over the edge into an abyss of violence and retribution.
Finally on Tuesday the 13th an array of different circumstances led to the dying down of violence. The armies threat to engage with force, coupled with Hezbollah’s relative defeat in the mountains and the arrival of the Arab initiative all aided its ebbing. In a sense Hezbollah had achieved it’s objective, had flexed its military muscle and diverted the governmental gaze from the internal communication issue.
The Arab delegation headed by the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, got governmental and opposition leaders to agree to return to the dialogue table and invited them for this matter to Doha. The airport was reopened, and a day later the feuding parties where on their way. On the airport road politicians were greeted by an assemblage of citizens, outraged that their leaders had reverted to violence once again, who chanted: “If you don’t find a solution don’t even come back”.
After five days of negotiations the emir of Qatar, directly addressing this crowd of people, proclaimed: "Some of you took to the streets asking your leaders not to return to Lebanon without reaching an agreement ... I would like to tell you that your leaders have finally agreed and they will shortly be on their way back."
Essentially the agreement met some of Hezbollah’s key demands. It granted veto power to the opposition, a point of conflict that had spurred the political deadlock in the first place in December 2006 and approved reform to the electoral law that would carve up the country in new electoral districts. But most importantly it bound the parties to agree on a consensus candidate for the vacant presidency and emphasized that no side would use violence in the future.
The negotiations, quite deliberately, failed to address the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, the internal communication system or the airport security. A Guardian of the Cedars – a political party aligned to the government, statement read: “One must not be very optimistic, for there is a wide difference between a solution and a settlement.”
Yet interpreting the agreement as a defeat for the government coalition misses the point. Over the past weeks the single reason d’etre of the government was to avoid war. A full-blown civil war would have relinquished the government for good. It would have suffocated the, relative sovereignty of the democratic state, brought havoc on the country and would have made any future initiative to address Hezbollah’s weapons impossible. Within hours of the agreement the opposition dismantled their tent city, which had paralyzed Beirut’s central district in strike for over a year.
The Lebanese met the agreement with a mix of euphoria and skepticism. It was as if the whole country had held it’s breath for the past weeks and with the settlement was finally able to exhale. In a spectacle of renewal, Lebanese television showed hour-long dispatches from the presidential palace, where gardeners finally mowed the presidential lawn and maids dusted Greek statues, preparing the palace for the arrival of Lebanon’s new head of state. Occasionally pictures would change to Beirut’s Martyr’s square where 2000 white balloons were released in celebration. The pictures flickering over the television screen seemed even more surreal because just days before the same television stations showed dispatches of militias controlling large parts of West Beirut, crowds that descended on the dead bodies of their enemies and public torture of combatants. The Lebanese, not unaware of this contradiction, allowed themselves the celebration while being aware of the fragility of the situation.
Everybody seemed to agree that it will be a good summer. Lebanese stocks skyrocketed and the Daily Star proclaimed that 75.000 tourist were expected for this summer alone. Nobody however wanted to look further than three months ahead, as for that matter the Lebanese know their own history too well. Sadly the country has failed to learn its lessons and rather than departing from the vicious circle of intermittent violence that it teaches, it has developed powerful coping mechanisms against it.
As the recent developments have shown, violence never rests long enough to fully heal the deep wounds of the past in Lebanon’s social body. Wars are fought from and over history and new frontlines are drawn over the washed-out divisions of bygone days. At the beginning of the World War II a Lebanese schoolteacher wrote: “ I saw acute pain rise in the breasts of the generation that had lived through the catastrophe of the First War…. work stopped, and business dwindled as a wave of profound pessimism engulfed the country”. This pain and lethargy of war was again a major feature of the last weeks. It is a vicious mix of emotions that steals peoples future, suffocates their ambition and leaves them stranded in limbo. Having been caught in civil strive, characterized through war, violent clashes and political assassinations, since ever the country was created, these emotions have integrated into the Lebanese psyche.
It is most notable in the Lebanese ability to deal and to a degree ignore the violence around them. The July war of 2006 was full of stories of young Lebanese moving the hedonistic center of their capital to the surrounding mountains. There, they could slurp extra dry vodka martinis while watching the destruction of their country from a prime spot. This attitude was epitomized in a photo that won the 2006 World Press Photo Award. It showed a group of young, stylish and well tanned Lebanese driving through a completely destroyed neighborhood in their red convertible. Nobody, however who is not part of thread of history that has seemed countless military uniforms can ever understand this contrast or is able to judge it.
The struggle for Lebanon is not over but for now it is off the streets. Yet for the country to move from a series of extended cease-fires to lasting peace it has to confront its history and seek true reconciliation. Lebanese politicians have to stop down the road of narrow self-interest and sectarian paternalism. They have to make a real effort to stop foreign powers from meddling with their country, according to their own agendas.
Each new war puts the predicament of power in Lebanon into public debate; it opens up new arenas of conflict and accommodation and calls political institutions and practices into question. It was such a window of opportunity, opened through WWII that allowed Lebanon to gain its independence and it might be again such a window that allows Lebanon to finally escape the captivity of its own history.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Storm Had Entered the War
Military moved across the city like over a giant chessboard. The deep grumble of rocket prepelled grenades hitting far away, invisible targets kept a constant reminder of the state of affairs. From time to time flares lit up the night.
The grumble had faded for several hours. The city lay calm, calmer than ever imagined. People glued to their television screens had deserted the streets. Suddenly the stilness was shattered to pieces by the powerful roar. This time it was different. The roar was deeper, more powerful and absorbing, yet strangely familiar.
The intensity of the noise increased and the time between its occurences got proogressively shorter. Now, the roars’ hidden arm seemed to hit and smash its mark.
We got up, went into the living room and stared at the sea. A natural spectacle of rage and violence envolded in front of our eyes - a storm had entered the war. Lighting bolts, a thousand times brighter than its human counterparts, exploded through the sky and hit the gloomy surface of the waters. A roar of thunder, concluding the distructive power of its creator, sped through the air.
Rain started to fall. First, it approached in a quiet whisper. Then, it drummed like driving on a throusand galleon slaves, carpet-bombing the ground with its drops. The sound wrapped us in the deepest depts of the night’s cloack. We felt relief. The strom had stepped in to break the spell of war and replace it with an ore of nature’s might.
The grumble had faded for several hours. The city lay calm, calmer than ever imagined. People glued to their television screens had deserted the streets. Suddenly the stilness was shattered to pieces by the powerful roar. This time it was different. The roar was deeper, more powerful and absorbing, yet strangely familiar.
The intensity of the noise increased and the time between its occurences got proogressively shorter. Now, the roars’ hidden arm seemed to hit and smash its mark.
We got up, went into the living room and stared at the sea. A natural spectacle of rage and violence envolded in front of our eyes - a storm had entered the war. Lighting bolts, a thousand times brighter than its human counterparts, exploded through the sky and hit the gloomy surface of the waters. A roar of thunder, concluding the distructive power of its creator, sped through the air.
Rain started to fall. First, it approached in a quiet whisper. Then, it drummed like driving on a throusand galleon slaves, carpet-bombing the ground with its drops. The sound wrapped us in the deepest depts of the night’s cloack. We felt relief. The strom had stepped in to break the spell of war and replace it with an ore of nature’s might.
Friday, March 7, 2008
If Desperate and Fighting for Survival
' If desperate and fighting for survival....' is what many people would answer if you pose them a question that asks for 'extreme' human beahaviour. Such could be canibalism, killing of another human being, engaging in torture or just grabbing a rifle to fight.
In our cosy western homes we rarely experience such circumstance and the only group of poeople that can answer such questions decisively are our grandparents. So what if 'extremety' is the very everyday of whole populations, and that for decades?
In recent weeks, whenever I look beyond the southern borders of my current home country I feel like staring into a bottomless abyss. On the surface I can make out a puppet theater of strike and retaliation, of mourning and celebration. yet looking further into it incoprehension and darkness invade. The rules of the drama seem facile, when you strike and kill you jubilate when you are stuck and killed you grieve. Each action is then echoed regionally and globally, heard as long as replaced by the noise of a counter attack. Absurd question pose themselves. Would we fight more humane wars if we'd mourn our enemies death? Is there something like a humane war? And if, would such inspire greatness or be mere schizophrenia?
I know I repeat myself and don't make much sense, but so does the world around me.
...to be continued
In our cosy western homes we rarely experience such circumstance and the only group of poeople that can answer such questions decisively are our grandparents. So what if 'extremety' is the very everyday of whole populations, and that for decades?
In recent weeks, whenever I look beyond the southern borders of my current home country I feel like staring into a bottomless abyss. On the surface I can make out a puppet theater of strike and retaliation, of mourning and celebration. yet looking further into it incoprehension and darkness invade. The rules of the drama seem facile, when you strike and kill you jubilate when you are stuck and killed you grieve. Each action is then echoed regionally and globally, heard as long as replaced by the noise of a counter attack. Absurd question pose themselves. Would we fight more humane wars if we'd mourn our enemies death? Is there something like a humane war? And if, would such inspire greatness or be mere schizophrenia?
I know I repeat myself and don't make much sense, but so does the world around me.
...to be continued
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Who is an Arab? In Answer to Rafi Feghali
An answer to this question very much depends on what frameworks of inquiry we apply. Semantically speaking, in the Arabic language the three letters ‘عرب refer primarily to a waterless, deserted and barren land. For thousands of years they stood more specifically for the landmass naturally bordered by the Sinai, the Red Sea, the Arabian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and the Fertile Crescent. Following this the Arabs are then seen to be the nomadic people that have inhabited this land for millennia.
Traditionally these have been divided into three groups according to lineage. The first are the Perishing Arabs, like the Ad, Thamud, Emlaq, Jadis etc. of whose history is little known. The second are the Qhatanian Arabs who are descendants of Ya’rub bin Yashjub bin Qahtan. And thirdly the Adnanian Arabs who are seen as the son’s of Ishmael, son of Abraham. Some people have described the Qhatanian Arabs, who originating somewhere in Yemen as the ‘Pure Arabs’ and the Adnanian Arabs as ‘arabized’ people of another origin. Today, anybody who can claim to descent from any of these people is in genealogical terms an Arab.
It has to be noted that each connection of a people and a land, is no more than a snapshot in time, and at different times different peoples have claimed the very same territory. However an interesting question that arises from the general orthodoxy above is from what moment in time did Ya’rub bin Yashjub bin Qahtan call himself an Arab and what was he before that? Or from what point onwards were the Adnanian Arabs thought about as Arabs and what were indicators of their arabness?
Another classification of which genealogy forms one pillar is that of ethnicity. An ethnic group has been described to be biologically self-perpetuating, sharing cultural values and forms, makes up a field of interaction and communication and has a membership that identifies itself and is identified by others as constituting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order. These definitions deserve greater consideration.
As much as we love to claim clear patrilines, biological coherency is difficult to claim for two reasons. Firstly, as shown above, Arabs are by definition not of one people. Secondly, if one considers the history of conquest of the area that the Arab people inhabit, it becomes clear that being Arab today, means to being a biological and cultural hybrid
Despite this great diversity, we do share some cultural commonalities. A most popularly invoked aspect of which is based on the third pillar of ethnicity, that of communication. Following this Arabs are seen to be those people who speak Arabic as their first language. This would however include many people that don’t consider themselves as Arabs, such as Copts and many Lebanese Maronite Christians, and exclude many second generation emigrants.
Be that as it may there are other cultural denominators that we share as a people, although these are not exclusive to us as Arabs. Hospitality as a value and custom is one, of such. Connected to this is food and drink. We do share some dishes throughout the Arab World, like Tabouhle and Houmous. Tea, or coffee drinking and smoking- or rather excuses to socialize and talk are other activities that can be observed from Baghdad to Nouakchott. To a degree an identity will always be a construct of differing and factors which overlap with other identities.If we look at the emergence of other regional identities in different parts of the globe we can see the relative construction of cultural coherence. For example when the European Union was created at the beginning of the 1990’s, the questioned was posed, “What does it mean to have a European identity?’ The discussions that followed generally focused on a common geography notion of ancient Greek political heritage, the conquest of the Romans and following this the spread of Christianity. These variables seem vague, and would allow the inclusion of some countries of the Levant and North Africa.
The fourth pillar of ethnicity seems somehow crucial and following it, Arabs are those people that define themselves as such and are also defined as such by others. Historically, especially Kurds, Persians and Amazigh have been known to cross ethnic boundaries and arabize, but technically everybody could do so.
Being an Arab is a non-essential identity. It exists beside the fact that one is of a certain family, tribe, city, region, country, religion or occupation. The point of religion has to be stressed as many western observers confuse the Arab with the Muslim world. Despite the great influence that Islam had on the Arab World, it has to be clear that an Arab can be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Druze, Buddhist, Secular, Gnostic or whatever he or she likes to be. Thus to sum up, Arabs can be described, as a group of people that is loosely connected by culture, habits and customs, however doesn’t correspond to a particular religion, race or ethnicity.
Finally, but maybe most importantly, people who live in the area described as the Arab world face similar obstacles to the expansion of their full human potential. Although I’d like to refrain from uniting a region in the framing of problems, we have to recognize the common challenges that we face. Being an Arab today frequently also means to live under authoritarian rule, old or new forms of colonialism, distortion of history, endemic underdevelopment, lack of education, technological underdevelopment, intellectual and economic impoverishment, non-emancipation, informational isolation etc. More positively expressed it means that we have to join in the same battles, that we share the desire to take the future with our own hands and form from it what we wish.
Traditionally these have been divided into three groups according to lineage. The first are the Perishing Arabs, like the Ad, Thamud, Emlaq, Jadis etc. of whose history is little known. The second are the Qhatanian Arabs who are descendants of Ya’rub bin Yashjub bin Qahtan. And thirdly the Adnanian Arabs who are seen as the son’s of Ishmael, son of Abraham. Some people have described the Qhatanian Arabs, who originating somewhere in Yemen as the ‘Pure Arabs’ and the Adnanian Arabs as ‘arabized’ people of another origin. Today, anybody who can claim to descent from any of these people is in genealogical terms an Arab.
It has to be noted that each connection of a people and a land, is no more than a snapshot in time, and at different times different peoples have claimed the very same territory. However an interesting question that arises from the general orthodoxy above is from what moment in time did Ya’rub bin Yashjub bin Qahtan call himself an Arab and what was he before that? Or from what point onwards were the Adnanian Arabs thought about as Arabs and what were indicators of their arabness?
Another classification of which genealogy forms one pillar is that of ethnicity. An ethnic group has been described to be biologically self-perpetuating, sharing cultural values and forms, makes up a field of interaction and communication and has a membership that identifies itself and is identified by others as constituting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order. These definitions deserve greater consideration.
As much as we love to claim clear patrilines, biological coherency is difficult to claim for two reasons. Firstly, as shown above, Arabs are by definition not of one people. Secondly, if one considers the history of conquest of the area that the Arab people inhabit, it becomes clear that being Arab today, means to being a biological and cultural hybrid
Despite this great diversity, we do share some cultural commonalities. A most popularly invoked aspect of which is based on the third pillar of ethnicity, that of communication. Following this Arabs are seen to be those people who speak Arabic as their first language. This would however include many people that don’t consider themselves as Arabs, such as Copts and many Lebanese Maronite Christians, and exclude many second generation emigrants.
Be that as it may there are other cultural denominators that we share as a people, although these are not exclusive to us as Arabs. Hospitality as a value and custom is one, of such. Connected to this is food and drink. We do share some dishes throughout the Arab World, like Tabouhle and Houmous. Tea, or coffee drinking and smoking- or rather excuses to socialize and talk are other activities that can be observed from Baghdad to Nouakchott. To a degree an identity will always be a construct of differing and factors which overlap with other identities.If we look at the emergence of other regional identities in different parts of the globe we can see the relative construction of cultural coherence. For example when the European Union was created at the beginning of the 1990’s, the questioned was posed, “What does it mean to have a European identity?’ The discussions that followed generally focused on a common geography notion of ancient Greek political heritage, the conquest of the Romans and following this the spread of Christianity. These variables seem vague, and would allow the inclusion of some countries of the Levant and North Africa.
The fourth pillar of ethnicity seems somehow crucial and following it, Arabs are those people that define themselves as such and are also defined as such by others. Historically, especially Kurds, Persians and Amazigh have been known to cross ethnic boundaries and arabize, but technically everybody could do so.
Being an Arab is a non-essential identity. It exists beside the fact that one is of a certain family, tribe, city, region, country, religion or occupation. The point of religion has to be stressed as many western observers confuse the Arab with the Muslim world. Despite the great influence that Islam had on the Arab World, it has to be clear that an Arab can be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Druze, Buddhist, Secular, Gnostic or whatever he or she likes to be. Thus to sum up, Arabs can be described, as a group of people that is loosely connected by culture, habits and customs, however doesn’t correspond to a particular religion, race or ethnicity.
Finally, but maybe most importantly, people who live in the area described as the Arab world face similar obstacles to the expansion of their full human potential. Although I’d like to refrain from uniting a region in the framing of problems, we have to recognize the common challenges that we face. Being an Arab today frequently also means to live under authoritarian rule, old or new forms of colonialism, distortion of history, endemic underdevelopment, lack of education, technological underdevelopment, intellectual and economic impoverishment, non-emancipation, informational isolation etc. More positively expressed it means that we have to join in the same battles, that we share the desire to take the future with our own hands and form from it what we wish.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Indicators for Human Dignity
Reading the news this morning, I am wondering what are meaningful parameters for human development. The most powerful country in the world, one that is supposed to fight for the equality and liberty of all human beings, is openly using methods that were employed by the Inquisition in 14th century Spain. The critical circumstances demanded Americas sidestepping of human dignity. Is dignity attached to each human being or does it come as a pool for the human species? Making one of us suffer to possibly save others reduces our lives to a mere calculation. Mathematics that, in the hands of a child that has not yet learned to count to three, have proven incredibly dangerous. Sadly, this infant's logic has become an inspiration for our constitutions.
When Saddam Hussein was hanged, as little sympathy as I had for the man, I wanted to cry. In the midst of killing and bloodshed, the most important official act and long hailed symbolic ‘new beginning’ of our country was built on the suffering of a human being. As we aspire to an angry child’s definition of human dignity, we create empty nursery rhymes in our constitutions. These keep us busy, but hinder our development. It is time to openly discuss what human dignity means to us in the Arab World and what we are prepared to do in order to protect it.
When Saddam Hussein was hanged, as little sympathy as I had for the man, I wanted to cry. In the midst of killing and bloodshed, the most important official act and long hailed symbolic ‘new beginning’ of our country was built on the suffering of a human being. As we aspire to an angry child’s definition of human dignity, we create empty nursery rhymes in our constitutions. These keep us busy, but hinder our development. It is time to openly discuss what human dignity means to us in the Arab World and what we are prepared to do in order to protect it.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Respecting the State
…metal spikes and barbed wire on the Egyptian-Palestinian border have effectively murdered Gazans’ hope for manumission, and mine for a respectable government in the Arab World.
I positively disagree with Suleiman Awwad, spokesman of President Mubarak of Egypt, when he says: "Egypt is a respected state. Its border cannot be breached and its soldiers should not be lobbed with stones". On the contrary Mr. Awwad, I’d say that the Egyptian state just missed the opportunity to become a state that deserves my respect. Let me remind you Mr. Awwad, that ‘respect’ is a feeling of deep admiration towards the achievements or abilities of a person or organization. And please excuse that in my eyes, locking inn 1.5 million people in their misery, if you are the only person with the key to their prison, doesn’t qualify as an action that deserves such admiration.
I would have admired a state and thus leader that stands for justice in the presence of cruelty, a leader that would accept the bombardment of his cities for having taken the right decisions, and a leader that would once again publicize the absurdity of the situation in Palestine, a leader that stands with the weak.
I am deeply sorry that this state doesn’t deserve my respect Mr. Awwad.
I positively disagree with Suleiman Awwad, spokesman of President Mubarak of Egypt, when he says: "Egypt is a respected state. Its border cannot be breached and its soldiers should not be lobbed with stones". On the contrary Mr. Awwad, I’d say that the Egyptian state just missed the opportunity to become a state that deserves my respect. Let me remind you Mr. Awwad, that ‘respect’ is a feeling of deep admiration towards the achievements or abilities of a person or organization. And please excuse that in my eyes, locking inn 1.5 million people in their misery, if you are the only person with the key to their prison, doesn’t qualify as an action that deserves such admiration.
I would have admired a state and thus leader that stands for justice in the presence of cruelty, a leader that would accept the bombardment of his cities for having taken the right decisions, and a leader that would once again publicize the absurdity of the situation in Palestine, a leader that stands with the weak.
I am deeply sorry that this state doesn’t deserve my respect Mr. Awwad.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Hello My Sumerian Friend. This Is Your Phoenician Friend
Joking about issues that caused wars in the past is very prevalent among the educated new generation of Lebanon. A couple of the undying objects of our jokes at the office, for example, are identity and Arabism (or the Arab cause and what derives from it).
As much as the two terms are related in Lebanon, they are equally not related. Also, considering that I come from a family of a Maronite father and an Orthodox Armenian mother, I don’t think that my experience in Lebanese identity can be generalized. Add to it my mingling and close relationships with Druzes, Sunnis, Shiites and numerous non-Lebanese and you’ll get an extremely rare philosophy about identity. I like to think of myself as a “global citizen”. Maybe I am not and I just wish to be. The layered history of the different identities the area of land now known as Lebanon has had, makes the identity of current Lebanon already very complex. This may be one the very few things that make me proud to be Lebanese; it’s amazing to know that one of my grandfathers might have been Ottoman (also ironic considering my mother’s side), his great grandfather might have been a European Crusader, whose wife might have been Byzantine or Roman, who in turn fell in love with an Arab or a Persian before marrying. I should have added Phoenician somewhere between those, or probably at the end, but that idea is already over-suggested. It doesn’t need me to highlight it.
As if this debate and the comprehension of this complex structure needed any more intricate factors, modern media had to kick in. Satellite TV, internet, and open global economy made Lebanon a street in the “global village”. Being a citizen living on this “street”, I can’t but be a citizen of that “village” as well.
Of course, a very big component (or layer, so to speak) in the current Lebanese identity is Arab. Throughout history (being part of the empire back when it started to rise) and now as part of its geographical existence and its dominant (and official) language. But what Arab is exactly more than that is also debatable in itself. There are many who tried to define that and many who adopt different definitions. Among all those who claim to be Arabs, very few show commonalities among each other. A Saudi Arabian is an Arab (it would be very funny if he wasn’t), and a Moroccan is an Arab. Of course, there are other countries in between that also differ but not as much, but I think considering these two “Arab” countries makes my point. Lebanon adopts a certain definition of Arab as well (not considering those very few who don’t and are not very convincing with why not). All this makes me feel that I haven’t really made up my mind yet about what an Arab really is. I definitely know what I would like the Utopia of the Arab Union to be like, though.
By Raffi Feghali
As much as the two terms are related in Lebanon, they are equally not related. Also, considering that I come from a family of a Maronite father and an Orthodox Armenian mother, I don’t think that my experience in Lebanese identity can be generalized. Add to it my mingling and close relationships with Druzes, Sunnis, Shiites and numerous non-Lebanese and you’ll get an extremely rare philosophy about identity. I like to think of myself as a “global citizen”. Maybe I am not and I just wish to be. The layered history of the different identities the area of land now known as Lebanon has had, makes the identity of current Lebanon already very complex. This may be one the very few things that make me proud to be Lebanese; it’s amazing to know that one of my grandfathers might have been Ottoman (also ironic considering my mother’s side), his great grandfather might have been a European Crusader, whose wife might have been Byzantine or Roman, who in turn fell in love with an Arab or a Persian before marrying. I should have added Phoenician somewhere between those, or probably at the end, but that idea is already over-suggested. It doesn’t need me to highlight it.
As if this debate and the comprehension of this complex structure needed any more intricate factors, modern media had to kick in. Satellite TV, internet, and open global economy made Lebanon a street in the “global village”. Being a citizen living on this “street”, I can’t but be a citizen of that “village” as well.
Of course, a very big component (or layer, so to speak) in the current Lebanese identity is Arab. Throughout history (being part of the empire back when it started to rise) and now as part of its geographical existence and its dominant (and official) language. But what Arab is exactly more than that is also debatable in itself. There are many who tried to define that and many who adopt different definitions. Among all those who claim to be Arabs, very few show commonalities among each other. A Saudi Arabian is an Arab (it would be very funny if he wasn’t), and a Moroccan is an Arab. Of course, there are other countries in between that also differ but not as much, but I think considering these two “Arab” countries makes my point. Lebanon adopts a certain definition of Arab as well (not considering those very few who don’t and are not very convincing with why not). All this makes me feel that I haven’t really made up my mind yet about what an Arab really is. I definitely know what I would like the Utopia of the Arab Union to be like, though.
By Raffi Feghali
Friday, January 25, 2008
Where “Us” meets “Them”
A Palestinian friend of mine told me that once he was stopped by a Jordanian officer when he arrived to Amman airport coming from Beirut Beirut
I didn’t answer then, but
The major fallacy in their thinking is the belief that
The conflict in
The political system generates the social structure and strengthens the sectarian division and vise versa. This leads to separate ethno-political minorities with strong identities that possess a different perception to its history in relation to itself and to others. Everyone lives in a ghetto where the past is idealized and the present is lived with a paranoiac attitude of mistrust. It’s the “Us” versus the “Them”. Inside the separate geographical areas, the different confessions explode with the attitudes of mistrust and live the illusion of persecution. Everyone is persecuted in
What next? –you might ask- I believe what the Lebanese need is a social and political change that pushes the country ahead another step towards a democratic, secular state, and abolishes sectarianism or what is termed confessional democracy. This means that a central powerful government must immerge and the power of the traditional political leaders minimized. This is why it’s very important to support civil society initiatives that breaks the sectarian boundaries and issues a dialogue between the Lebanese as individuals, not as members of confessions. Only then the process of healing might start.
Hezbullah for example cannot be understood as a political phenomenon except by understanding the history of the Shiet community in south
What can you bring from
Repercussions
There seems an absolute order in what follows such an attack of our cozy everydays. A response that seems so natural that it appears to be innate, a biological reaction to the exceptional. An exception however, it isn’t, but this is impossible to admit. Everybody runs to their phones, turns on the TV, as if information from the outside world is the only cure for what is going on inside you. In conjuncture you try to come up with people that might be closest to the blast. You call…the phone is silent. Again and again you try, till the phone relieves your tension with the sound of a free line. In a parallelogram of your outside action, your inside unfolds.
No shock, no panic, just numbness and incomprehension. Pressure is lingering in your chest, fed by disgust and sorrow. A disgust fed by the methods that are adopted to steer our politics, sorrow fed by the fact that this is not a novel occurrence to this part of the world. Your head is struck with emptiness; failing to understand the things your eyes see flickers over the TV screen. As time passes, the sorrow turns into anger. The anger creeps from your chest into you neck and shoulders, your muscles tense and it feels like you carrying the physical weight of the lifeless bodies that are left behind by the attack. Your colleague tells a joke to empty the situation of its graveness. Your mouth forms a smile, its corners fighting the very same weight that weights on your shoulders. Your head gains back its control over the world, just to strike your body with more anger and outrage. And then the ultimate feeling of this part of the world strikes you, IMPOTENCE!!!
No shock, no panic, just numbness and incomprehension. Pressure is lingering in your chest, fed by disgust and sorrow. A disgust fed by the methods that are adopted to steer our politics, sorrow fed by the fact that this is not a novel occurrence to this part of the world. Your head is struck with emptiness; failing to understand the things your eyes see flickers over the TV screen. As time passes, the sorrow turns into anger. The anger creeps from your chest into you neck and shoulders, your muscles tense and it feels like you carrying the physical weight of the lifeless bodies that are left behind by the attack. Your colleague tells a joke to empty the situation of its graveness. Your mouth forms a smile, its corners fighting the very same weight that weights on your shoulders. Your head gains back its control over the world, just to strike your body with more anger and outrage. And then the ultimate feeling of this part of the world strikes you, IMPOTENCE!!!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
A Martial People?
When I was born in 1981, my country was at war with Iran, and bombed by Israel. When I was 10, I remember my father constantly occupying the phone, while the television displayed greenish night-vision pictures of Baghdad showered by a firework of cruise missiles. As throughout my lifetime, today my country is at war. Considering the reasons for this, our mess, the media lend an easy explanation. Our condition is somehow innate.
Especially popular western media have a tendency to depict the conflicts of the Arab world as primordial, essentially ‘tribal’ or ‘sectarian’, to use the expression of the day. And increasingly we, the Arabs, seem to agree. Our television sets are sources of great comfort, to us. We turn to them to create artificial order, whenever chaos has visited our doorsteps. Currently Iraq occupies the prime-position in this bloody spectacle of chaos, and we increasingly believe the representations that are shown to us.
Having lived in Syria and Lebanon, our neighbors say, that Iraqis have some kind of warring sentiment, a “lingering passion that has to be satisfied with the blood of our enemies”, as a Syrian friend of mine once put it, talking about the Iraqi tradition of killing our presidents.
It is true that we are a people that hail their warriors and glorify their battles, but so does the rest of the world. The obscene picture of a general parading his medals, won for acts of violence against fellow human beings, can be seen from Baghdad to Berlin, from Warsaw to Washington.
What sets us apart as Arabs, and as Iraqis especially, is the fact that we’re actively and passively essentializing the violent aspects of our culture. In doing so, we aid the depiction of our conflicts as being devoid of history, somehow hanging in a socio-economic vacuum, as perpetual, endless cycles of violence. We are co-directors in the creation of our own self-fulfilling prophecies, historical prisons that don’t allow us to escape.
How important the self-image of a people and its depiction to the outer world can be in the development of a free society, was taught to me by the history of the people that make up another part of my family, that of the German people.
When my grandfather was born in Germany in 1913, his country was at the brink to of the First World War, a conflict that would cost 2000.000 people their lives. When he was 10 years old the Nazi party leaders of the Kampfbund tried their first move to power in the ‘Trinkhallen Putsch’. When he was a young man he went to fight as a soldier on the eastern front of the Second World War. His live and times have been characterized by ongoing conflict, and things would not have looked different if I would depict the lives of any of my ancestors before him.
Thus, German people have in recent history- not unlike most other Europeans at different times - displayed remarkable aggression against ‘enemies’ within and outside of their state. They have quite arguably started, or had a major hand in the start, of the First and Second World War. Yet, despite these minor historical facts, German people today are not known, for their war-mongering tendencies, but for ‘efficiency’, ‘precision’ and their, ‘time-keeping’. These labels are not a mere post-WWII construction, but have long been part of the German stereotype. However post WWII sentiment of renewal, picked them, quite consciously out of the collective psyche. This representation allowed the German nation to reinvent itself as productive, rather than destructive.
Further, Germany was permitted particular historical reasons for it’s wars and not reduced to mere genetics or racial stereotypes, despite its short lived insistence on their importance. Today World war One is being framed as a matter of cause and effect, the so called ‘treaty-alliance system’, while the Second World War was a ‘natural response’ to the countries destitute in the aftermath of the First World War.
It is true that we, the Iraqi people are prone to violence, yet this is not what makes us.
What can be witnessed in present day Iraq is the reaction of an occupied people. A people, that went through the so well known Middle Eastern mix of hyper militarism and extreme nationalism (which itself has not been unknown to Germany). Violence has literally been a major form of governance in Iraq for the past century or so. Despite this we have to remind ourselves of the many positive attributes our culture bears, and have to make them known to the world.
For example until today, I have not met one Iraqi of school age who could not recite dozens of poems. Our poets, like our warriors have started revolutions. In Iraq artist, if painters, writers or filmmakers hold a social prestige, unknown to their European counterparts. Among the Arabs we are still hailed for our levels of higher education.
We are a civilized people, a people that have a history that we can build on. This, however, doesn’t mean that we can rest on the laurels of days gone by, or cry over past glories, but that we have to reclaim our history and recognize today’s continuity with the past.
I hope that someday, in the not too far future, we will say with pride “We are Iraqi, we are passionate about life, we love the arts, are proud of our history and above all have hope for our future”
Especially popular western media have a tendency to depict the conflicts of the Arab world as primordial, essentially ‘tribal’ or ‘sectarian’, to use the expression of the day. And increasingly we, the Arabs, seem to agree. Our television sets are sources of great comfort, to us. We turn to them to create artificial order, whenever chaos has visited our doorsteps. Currently Iraq occupies the prime-position in this bloody spectacle of chaos, and we increasingly believe the representations that are shown to us.
Having lived in Syria and Lebanon, our neighbors say, that Iraqis have some kind of warring sentiment, a “lingering passion that has to be satisfied with the blood of our enemies”, as a Syrian friend of mine once put it, talking about the Iraqi tradition of killing our presidents.
It is true that we are a people that hail their warriors and glorify their battles, but so does the rest of the world. The obscene picture of a general parading his medals, won for acts of violence against fellow human beings, can be seen from Baghdad to Berlin, from Warsaw to Washington.
What sets us apart as Arabs, and as Iraqis especially, is the fact that we’re actively and passively essentializing the violent aspects of our culture. In doing so, we aid the depiction of our conflicts as being devoid of history, somehow hanging in a socio-economic vacuum, as perpetual, endless cycles of violence. We are co-directors in the creation of our own self-fulfilling prophecies, historical prisons that don’t allow us to escape.
How important the self-image of a people and its depiction to the outer world can be in the development of a free society, was taught to me by the history of the people that make up another part of my family, that of the German people.
When my grandfather was born in Germany in 1913, his country was at the brink to of the First World War, a conflict that would cost 2000.000 people their lives. When he was 10 years old the Nazi party leaders of the Kampfbund tried their first move to power in the ‘Trinkhallen Putsch’. When he was a young man he went to fight as a soldier on the eastern front of the Second World War. His live and times have been characterized by ongoing conflict, and things would not have looked different if I would depict the lives of any of my ancestors before him.
Thus, German people have in recent history- not unlike most other Europeans at different times - displayed remarkable aggression against ‘enemies’ within and outside of their state. They have quite arguably started, or had a major hand in the start, of the First and Second World War. Yet, despite these minor historical facts, German people today are not known, for their war-mongering tendencies, but for ‘efficiency’, ‘precision’ and their, ‘time-keeping’. These labels are not a mere post-WWII construction, but have long been part of the German stereotype. However post WWII sentiment of renewal, picked them, quite consciously out of the collective psyche. This representation allowed the German nation to reinvent itself as productive, rather than destructive.
Further, Germany was permitted particular historical reasons for it’s wars and not reduced to mere genetics or racial stereotypes, despite its short lived insistence on their importance. Today World war One is being framed as a matter of cause and effect, the so called ‘treaty-alliance system’, while the Second World War was a ‘natural response’ to the countries destitute in the aftermath of the First World War.
It is true that we, the Iraqi people are prone to violence, yet this is not what makes us.
What can be witnessed in present day Iraq is the reaction of an occupied people. A people, that went through the so well known Middle Eastern mix of hyper militarism and extreme nationalism (which itself has not been unknown to Germany). Violence has literally been a major form of governance in Iraq for the past century or so. Despite this we have to remind ourselves of the many positive attributes our culture bears, and have to make them known to the world.
For example until today, I have not met one Iraqi of school age who could not recite dozens of poems. Our poets, like our warriors have started revolutions. In Iraq artist, if painters, writers or filmmakers hold a social prestige, unknown to their European counterparts. Among the Arabs we are still hailed for our levels of higher education.
We are a civilized people, a people that have a history that we can build on. This, however, doesn’t mean that we can rest on the laurels of days gone by, or cry over past glories, but that we have to reclaim our history and recognize today’s continuity with the past.
I hope that someday, in the not too far future, we will say with pride “We are Iraqi, we are passionate about life, we love the arts, are proud of our history and above all have hope for our future”
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Gaza Under Siege
The siege of Gaza has reached new levels of intensity. Israel has imposed an embargo that effectively blocks the delivery of fuel oil supplies to the strip. Despite the crossing of two lorries carrying cooking gas and three carrying diesel at Israel’s Nahal Oz border, on Tuesday, a humanitarian crisis unfolds. Thousands of homes in the territory have been left without power. People live without light or heating in a bitter cold and wet winter. Bakers haven’t been able to bake bread in the absence of fuel to fire their ovens. Unicef stated that the effect on Gaza city’s main pumping station results in 600,000 Palestinians not having access to safe drinking water. Hospitals are short of medical supplies and paralysed by the power cuts. Medical infrastructure is on the verge of breakdown. If not enough the very habitat of the Palestinians is being destroyed. 30.000 cubic metres of sewage have been dumped in the Mediterranean untreated as a direct result of the embargo.
However it comes just as the latest addition to the already horrendous living conditions that Gaza citizens have to endure. 35% of Gazans live on less than two dollars a day; unemployment is by 50% and 80% receive humanitarian assistance. But the ultimate suffering for Gazans is that they are locked inn in this tragedy. Gaza’s border closures are without example. Palestinian are effectively prisoners to their misery, just that prisoners would receive a more humane treatment.
The Israeli government denies creating a humanitarian crisis, and calls the disaster a plot by the Gazan authorities. However Israel is not trying to obscure the rationale behind the blockade. It is intended to pressure Hamas into stopping the rocket attacks, launched from the Gaza strip onto Israeli territory. There has been a stark increase in the number of these attacks, 200 rockets and mortar bombs have plummet on southern Israel in the past week alone. Although the Israeli government has a right to stop the attacks on its civilian population it can’t do so by all means.
The collective punishment of civilian populations is specifically forbidden by International law. The Geneva Convention clearly spells out that occupying powers have the absolute obligation to supply capture territories with utilities such as fuel or water.
We should aim for the nonviolent settlement of conflicts in the Arab world, if through nonviolent struggle or negotiation. In this respect we urge the leaders of the world to take action against collective traumatisation of a people, the breaking of international treaties and undignified treatment of human beings. The world has become too used to the suffering of the Palestinian people. This is an outcry to remind it of their humanity.
More pragmatically the siege of Gaza undermines peace talks launched with the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas, and drives a further wedge between an already divided county. It is very likely that in the absence of a ceasefire with Hamas and the deficiency of peace talks in general, the rockets will soon fall again in Israel. Peace cannot be build by bringing suffering and destitute to 1.5 million people.
If the cycle of violence is to be broken, serious efforts for peace have to be accompanied by social justice. It is impossible to foster moderation and compromise, or build confidence in peaceful means of conflict resolution among Palestinians in the face of such brutal suppression. The intensity of the siege will again play in the hands of radicals.
What we the Israeli state and the international community should be doing, is treating the Palestinians with dignity and compassion in order to foster moderation and to empowering those people that believe Palestine’s future lies in peaceful resolution of their conflict. Efforts to reinitiate the peace process, the building of civic institutions and the reviving of the Palestinian economy are being emptied of any meaning and effect by the current situation in Gaza.
There has never been a more acute time to change the status quo in Gaza. Suppressed, hungry, unhealthy, traumatized and angry people don’t make good partners in a peace process.
However it comes just as the latest addition to the already horrendous living conditions that Gaza citizens have to endure. 35% of Gazans live on less than two dollars a day; unemployment is by 50% and 80% receive humanitarian assistance. But the ultimate suffering for Gazans is that they are locked inn in this tragedy. Gaza’s border closures are without example. Palestinian are effectively prisoners to their misery, just that prisoners would receive a more humane treatment.
The Israeli government denies creating a humanitarian crisis, and calls the disaster a plot by the Gazan authorities. However Israel is not trying to obscure the rationale behind the blockade. It is intended to pressure Hamas into stopping the rocket attacks, launched from the Gaza strip onto Israeli territory. There has been a stark increase in the number of these attacks, 200 rockets and mortar bombs have plummet on southern Israel in the past week alone. Although the Israeli government has a right to stop the attacks on its civilian population it can’t do so by all means.
The collective punishment of civilian populations is specifically forbidden by International law. The Geneva Convention clearly spells out that occupying powers have the absolute obligation to supply capture territories with utilities such as fuel or water.
We should aim for the nonviolent settlement of conflicts in the Arab world, if through nonviolent struggle or negotiation. In this respect we urge the leaders of the world to take action against collective traumatisation of a people, the breaking of international treaties and undignified treatment of human beings. The world has become too used to the suffering of the Palestinian people. This is an outcry to remind it of their humanity.
More pragmatically the siege of Gaza undermines peace talks launched with the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas, and drives a further wedge between an already divided county. It is very likely that in the absence of a ceasefire with Hamas and the deficiency of peace talks in general, the rockets will soon fall again in Israel. Peace cannot be build by bringing suffering and destitute to 1.5 million people.
If the cycle of violence is to be broken, serious efforts for peace have to be accompanied by social justice. It is impossible to foster moderation and compromise, or build confidence in peaceful means of conflict resolution among Palestinians in the face of such brutal suppression. The intensity of the siege will again play in the hands of radicals.
What we the Israeli state and the international community should be doing, is treating the Palestinians with dignity and compassion in order to foster moderation and to empowering those people that believe Palestine’s future lies in peaceful resolution of their conflict. Efforts to reinitiate the peace process, the building of civic institutions and the reviving of the Palestinian economy are being emptied of any meaning and effect by the current situation in Gaza.
There has never been a more acute time to change the status quo in Gaza. Suppressed, hungry, unhealthy, traumatized and angry people don’t make good partners in a peace process.
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